Victorian farmhouse life

Postscript

To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart. ~ Phyllis Theroux

Finally… the 2010 Post Card Exchange has come to a close. A heart felt thank you to all the wonderful bloggers who participated. Out of the seventy postcards I mailed out, I received fifty back. It was quite interesting learning about other areas of the country (and world!) One little man (Eli) even made the postcard with his mom’s help! How endearing is that?
I hope you enjoyed the postcards that ended up in your mailbox!

Sit back, relax and look at all the great cards I received. Make sure your volume is turned up.

Here are a few more facts about NJ (Thomas thinks I should be running the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism).

New Jersey has the second highest per capita income in the U.S.

New Jersey has three counties in the top ten U.S. counties by income.

New Jersey was the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights (Nov. 20,1789)

New Jersey is a peninsula.

New Jersey is the only state where all of its counties are classified as metropolitan areas.

New Jersey has more race horses than Kentucky.

New Jersey has more Cubans in Union City (1 sq mi.) than Havana, Cuba.

New Jersey has the densest system of highways and railroads in the US.

New Jersey has the highest cost of living.

New Jersey has the highest cost of auto insurance.

New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the nation.

Cartoonist Thomas Nast (Morristown) created the popular image of Santa Claus.

New Jersey has the most diners in the world and is sometimes referred to as the “Diner Capital of the World.”

Home to the less mysterious but the best Italian hot dogs and Italian sausage w/peppers and onions.

North Jersey has the most shopping malls in one area in the world, with seven major shopping malls in a 25 square mile radius.

New Jersey is home to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

The Passaic River was the site of the first submarine ride by inventor John P. Holland.

New Jersey was home to the Miss America Pageant held in Atlantic City.

The game Monopoly, played all over the world, named the streets on its playing board after the actual streets in Atlantic City.

Atlantic City has the longest boardwalk in the world and salt water taffy.

New Jersey has the most stringent testing along our coastline for water quality control than any other seaboard state in the entire country.

The “Trial of the Century” (the Lindberg Baby kidnapping) was held in Flemington.

New Jersey is a leading technology & industrial state and is the largest chemical producing state in the nation when you include pharmaceuticals.

Jersey tomatoes are known the world over as being the best you can buy.

You haven’t lived until you have eaten New Jersey Sweet Corn.

New Jersey is the birthplace of the cultivated blueberry and a leader in blueberry and cranberry production.

In 1642, the first brewery in America, opened in Hoboken.

New Jersey rocks! The famous Les Paul invented the first solid body electric guitar in Mahwah, in 1940.

New Jersey is a major seaport state with the largest seaport in the US, located in Elizabeth. Nearly 80 percent of what our nation imports comes through Elizabeth Seaport first.

New Jersey is home to one of the nation’s busiest airports (in Newark), Liberty International.

George Washington slept here. Several important Revolutionary War battles were fought on New Jersey soil, led by General George Washington. On Christmas Eve 1776, he crossed the Delaware to attack the Hessian troops at Trenton.

The first western was filmed by Edison in the hills of West Orange-“The Great Train Robbery.”

Highest population density in the US

Home of the US Olympic Equestrian Team

Home to the United States Golf association (Far Hills)

The transistor was invented by Bell Labs in NJ

The telephone was invented in NJ

Samuel Morse’s code machine was built in NJ (Morris Plains)

The first seaplane was built in Keyport, NJ.

The first airmail (to Chicago) was started from Keyport, NJ.

The first phonograph records were made in Camden, NJ.

New Jersey has the largest petroleum containment area outside of the Middle East countries.

New Jersey has the tallest water-tower in the world. (Union, NJ)

New Jersey had the first medical center, in Jersey City.

The Pulaski SkyWay, from Jersey City to Newark, was the first skyway highway.

NJ built the first tunnel under a river, the Hudson (Holland Tunnel).

The first baseball game was played in Hoboken, NJ, which is also the birthplace of Frank Sinatra.

The first intercollegiate football game was played in New Brunswick in 1889 (Rutgers College played Princeton).

The first drive-in movie theater was opened in Camden, NJ. One remains open in New Jersey and that is in Vineland, not far from the Fairfield House! We frequent it a few times in the summer. On a more personal note, Thomas and I were one day from closing on the childhood home of the man that invented Drive Ins (in Riverton, NJ).

New Jersey is home to both of “NEW YORK’S” pro football teams!

The first FM radio broadcast was made from Alpine, NJ, by Maj. Thomas Armstrong.

The Great Falls in Paterson, on the Passaic River, is the second highest waterfall on the East Coast of the US. In 1778, Alexander Hamilton visited the falls and was impressed by its potential for industry. Later as the nation’s first Secretary of Treasury, he selected the site as the nation’s first planned industrial city.

I did not receive a card from all fifty states but decided to host the give away any way because it gave me an opportunity to shop in all the quaint little shops that feature NJ goods. You will not be disappointed!

The NJ Themed Box includes:

Glass vase created by a Glass Studio Artist working in the T.C. Wheaton Glass Factory at Wheaton Arts. This piece is hand blown and hand crafted without the use of a mold. No two pieces will ever be exactly alike.

A glass ornament created by Rich and Karen Federici in Southern New Jersey. Their ornaments have been used to decorate the White House.

A pair of earrings created by Annelise (a resident of Southern New Jersey) She created these using Czech Glass Buttons from antique molds reflecting the culture of the 1920s era.

The Angel of the Sea Bed and Breakfast Cookbook which includes breakfast entries and tea time goodies to name but a few.

Fralingers Original Salt Water Taffy; Sea air and sunshine sealed in every box. Fralinger’s Salt Water Taffy has a creamy, smooth delicious taste that’s been a favorite for well over 125 years.

All of the entrants were assigned a number by MckLinky. Two additional entrants, Lynne from from New Hampshire and Char from Minnesota were unable to enter through MckLinky and were assigned numbers 68 and 69, respectively.

Loved the slide show…it was wonderful that you got so many cards..a little sad that i wasn’t lucky #8 but happy to know that someday soon I hope I will be back in the best state in the country!!! except for those pesky high taxes and high cost of living…maybe the new governor will fix that!

Hey Deborah!
Thanks for posting my giveaway…….I appreciate you!
I’m so glad Laura won your NJ giveaway, I know she could probably use a nice surprise like that! 😀
I had no idea all those things happened in NJ! Wow, you’re state has had a lot of historical stuff going on…light bulbs and telephones! 🙂 Very cool!
Good old KY….we have bluegrass, gorgeous horses, horse farms and the derby! 🙂 Well lots more than that, but you don’t need a history lesson. LOL
Thanks again for the shout out!
Love ya much my friend
Melissa

That was great! Loved the NJ trivia too. A couple of them make me still question, why am I living in NJ? I just learned my son bought a home in Qingdao, China!!! I’m here because a job transferred me here, then 10 years later laid me off. I don’t know where to go, so I’m still here!

Deborah, it was fun being a part of your postcard exchange. Sorry you didn’t reach your goal, but I think you did pretty good at getting 50 back. I’ll take time now and watch the video.
Congratulations to the winners…

Are you kidding me? I am TOTALLY shocked. Ok, breathe. Truly? Wowwwweeeee! Kazam! Honestly I had forgotten about the giveaway portion of the program and was reading and thinking to myself, “Oh I know just where I would put that vase….I would love to have that cookbook, the earrings are gorgeous and finally, the taffy would have to be hidden from Mr. Decor. 🙂

Thank you very, very much for hosting the postcard exchange. I received about the same return on postcards sent and then received, but I have truly been blessed with meeting some very wonderful, wonderful friends through this swap.

Deborah, that was sooooo beautiful, really beautiful. Loved the way you put music to the cards.
I was away, but managed to get a few calendars out.
Thank for this wonderful opportunity.
Love CLaudie
xoxox

WOWIE WOW! This made my five minute hastily slapped together posts blush and then go hide in the corner.

I am so impressed with the work that went into this post. I learned so much and enjoyed the slide show immensely. Thank you for taking the time to produce such quality work, I really, really enjoyed it!

Deborah…absolutely fantastic! I loved this, and you, as usual, did a fantastic job on the entire thing. What a wonderful gift box! What a wonderful video! You inspire me to do better. I never realized such a small state as NJ, had so many interesting facts…but if you are representative of the type of people the state has….it’s a pretty awesome place indeed.

Hi Deborah. Loved learning some things about NJ!
Thanks for visiting my blog and for taking the time to comment. To answer your question, we are in Oregon, and we were visiting the coast, where we used to live. My husband found every single one of those glass floats. I didn’t find any of them. He has a good eye! I guess it isn’t that common to find them washed up on the beach any more, so that makes it even more special! I wanted to know why you wouldn’t find them in NJ, so I researched glass floats on Wikipedia and this is what it said:
Today most of the glass floats remaining in the ocean are stuck in a circular pattern of ocean currents in the North Pacific. Off the east coast of Taiwan, the Kuroshio Current starts as a northern branch of the western-flowing North Equatorial Current. It flows past Japan and meets the arctic waters of the Oyashio Current. At this junction, the North Pacific Current (or Drift) is formed which travels east across Pacific before slowing down in the Gulf of Alaska. As it turns south, the California Current pushes the water into the North Equatorial Current once again, and the cycle continues. Although the number of glass floats is decreasing steadily, many floats are still drifting on these ocean currents. Occasionally storms or certain tidal conditions will break some floats from this circular pattern and bring them ashore. They most often end up on the beaches of Alaska, Washington or Oregon in the United States, Taiwan or Canada. It is estimated that floats must be a minimum of three years old before washing up on beaches in Alaska. Most floats that wash up, however, would have been afloat for 10 years. A small number of floats are also trapped in the Arctic ice pack where there is movement over the North Pole and into the Atlantic Ocean.
Sorry that was so long, but I thought that you would find it interesting. Come visit the North Oregon coast sometime during the months of March and April, during the storm season, and maybe you will get lucky and find some too!!! 🙂
Hope you have a great weekend! Beth.

How nice to meet you. Thanks for the visit to my blog and the comments. Just when I think that I won’t come across another blogger that impresses me, along comes YOU… What a fantastic blog, but especially the person behind it. I am in awe of your writing talent, I have trouble just putting ‘one word in front of the other’ 😉 It’s Monday and I have the usual chores to get done, but I’ll be back to look over your blog and to get to know you better. Thanks again for you visit.

Love the quote from Phyllis Theroux!
What a fun time you must have had with all those postcards!!
I loved the video and am sorry I didn’t have my emails and act together enough to get a postcard to you from SC. (I was really new to blogging).
I promise to mail one if there is a next time!
Anyway, I stopped by to say thank you for stopping by my master bedroom and the sweet comment you left me!
I do so appreciate the encouragement!
I have been to NJ, on a ferry to see Miss Liberty!
She was lovely.
I can’t wait to see what fun thingy you do next time for your giveaway!
Blessings to your home from mine!